Communist Project Research Articles

What’s so Marxist about Marxist Educational Theory?

The antagonism between “class” and “race” have plagued educational theory for decades. As a communist organizer seeking to move Marxist educational theory out of the stagnant waters of theoretical debates, I turn to recent CRT scholarship, which I find much more in line with the communist project. Yet, this literature omits world-historic and ongoing transformations inaugurated particularly since the beginning of the 20th century by erasing, discounting or, denouncing them. I argue the primary factors inhibiting educational researchers: Anticommunism. The global revolutionary era led largely by revolutionary communists contains the most fruitful explanations of those conditions and connections (and the historical legacies accounting for mass movements in the U.S. today, like the historic 2020 uprising against the War on Black America). This rich and dynamic legacy is what can get educational scholarship beyond the cages of academia. After outlining the interconnection between anticommunism and anti-Black racism as the contours of master narratives, I demonstrate how anticommunism continues to hold education’s potential contributions to the struggle back while accounting for the material conditions responsible for the absence of revolutionary theory and practice and the overwhelming surplus of theories critical of revolution in the university today. I demonstrate how anti-Black racism in the U.S. is tethered to anticommunism and how Leninism provides the theoretical and practical link uniting the global struggle of the oppressed and creating the Black and indigenous-led communist movement, contending struggles against white supremacy, capitalism, and imperialism depend on a rejection of anticommunism by turning to Black communist Claudia Jones.

The mouse, the snake, and the devil’s collar: Soviet symbols in the memory of Old Believers of the Upper Kama region

The Soviet project of creating the “new man” included the construction of a collective memory which was not only a legitimate version of the past, but also a repository of cultural values, and the background or space for celebrating Communist rituals. The project itself was rather uniform, but had multiple local incarnations that were determined mostly by the ethnic and religious identity of the local population. The Old Believers’ communities of the Russian North shared with the rest of the country symbols of the past, sites of memory, and commemorative rituals. Still, local perceptions of the Communist regime and its symbols depended in this milieu on a variety of factors: first, the high literacy rate of the deeply religious Old Believers, as well as their erudite knowledge of Christian, and specifically Old Russian literature; second, the very critical attitude toward Soviet power; and third, local beliefs. This article analyzes the process of adaptation of the Communist project to Old Believers’ persistent religious and cultural traditions and seeks to explain how Communist symbols symbiotically coexisted with hostile local attitudes and why they even survived the collapse of the regime. Mutual adjustment of the imposed Communist project and the local symbolic language took many decades, yet finally, by the end of the Soviet era, when three or four generations had seen no other reality than that they were surrounded by, the strong rejection of this reality was smoothed out, everyday tensions mostly disappeared, and the earlier alienation itself became part of collective memory on both family and community levels. The article is based on interviews with Old Believers of the Upper Kama region (Verkhokamie), conducted by the author in 2011 and 2013.

Collective Portrait of Deputies of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR and Union Republics in 1938–1989

In 1938–1989, Supreme Soviets of the USSR and Union Republics were the successors of the Congresses of Soviets and performed the same functions assigned to them by the ruling party — to approve and convert the decisions of the Сommunist Party into laws, to support the policy pursued by the party and the government, to legitimize the existing regime. The Soviets performed these functions quite successfully due to the fact that the deputy corps included people from all social groups loyal to the regime and at the same time influential, authoritative, and well-known throughout the country. A simple Soviet citizen believed in the deputies and the real power of the Supreme Soviets, thanks to which the Soviets, having no real power, had great symbolic power, which allowed them until 1989 to maintain the trust of the people in the Soviet system and the communist project. In 1938–1989, the composition of the deputies of the Supreme Soviets of the USSR and the union republics underwent important changes: there was an in increase in the proportion of workers and peasants, women, educated people, and people of mature and senior age; the proportion of employees, Russians and semi-literate people decreased. The deputies’ corps became more balanced in all respects and significantly more educated, but members and candidates of the Communist Party, men, employees, intellectuals, functionaries, were still overrepresented, and non-party workers, peasants and Russians were underrepresented. In general, the deputy corps was comprised of the elite; the Supreme Soviets of the Union and Autonomous Republics — of the national elite of the titular peoples. They were not professional politicians, as in Western parliaments, but the elite. For the majority of deputies, activity in the Soviets was not the main profession, but an honorable part-time job on a voluntary basis.

ФУТУРИСТИЧНИЙ ЦИФРОВИЙ ЗОБРАЖУВАЛЬНИЙ КОНТЕНТ ЯК ЗАСІБ РОСІЙСЬКОЇ ПРОПАГАНДИ НА ПОЧАТКУ ХХІ СТ.

At the beginning of the XXI century, a noticeable segment of the digital environment of the Russian Federation became a mass representation of visual images advertising its armed expansion with the aim of establishing itself within the borders of the USSR and seizing the territories of other states. Among such digital images, illustrations in the genre of alternative history attract attention. Their purpose is to exert propaganda influence in the youth environment. The authors of these works identify Russia and the Soviet Union and suggest the public users to dream about the topic: "How would the course of world history change if the USSR existed in the 21st century?". Source criticism of these visual sources indicates that they belong to the means of informationpsychological influence, which are an integral part of the Russian-Ukrainian hybrid war. The viewer's subconscious feels the aggressive influence of a visual series of Soviet political symbols in the plot, which uses motifs from wellknown works of mass culture, as well as scenes of violence. As a result, in a viewer is formed a psychological setting for a positive assessment of the historical experience of the USSR and a tolerant attitude towards the heroization of the Soviet totalitarian past. One of the most popular plots of propaganda content is the revival of the Soviet Union as a neo-imperial communist project using advanced military-space technologies and the war of the Russian Federation with NATO. The communities "USSR-2061" and "Russian Space Society" are points of crystallization of supporters of such ideas on the Internet. These communities spread their visual messages on Telegram, Facebook, Twitter, VKontakte, LiveJournal and YouTube. As a carrier of ideological allusions are used digital paintings, made by techniques of concept and promo art. Both types of visual art are widely applied in the process of gamification of the digital space. Therefore, they correspond to the aesthetic tastes of modern youth, turning them into the main object of a visual information attack. The conceptual charge of these arts attaches to the use of historical pictorial symbols: the coat of arms and flag of the USSR, details of the landscape, interior, clothing, weapons, and transport. In the paintings depicting the metropolises of the second half of the 21st century, the viewer sees architectural monuments in the style of the Stalinist Empire. Colorful scenes of battle painting «promise» the viewer the complete destruction by Soviet soldiers of the future world of the «collective West». So, according to the authors of the article, the futuristic visual political message for the Russian regime in the course of the hybrid war turned into one of the means of informationpsychological influence, capable of performing manipulative and campaigning functions both in the Russian Federation and in other countries, that belong to the orbit of its desired political influence. The potential possibilities of using futuristic political messages as an informational weapon necessitate further scientific study of this phenomenon.

Добродетели против коммунизма. Фишман Л.Г. Эпоха добродетелей: После советской морали. М.: Новое литературное обозрение, 2022

The article is dedicated to comprehending the ideas set forth in the monograph by Leonid Fishman The Age of Virtues: After Soviet Morality, which raises the question of the reasons for the rapid destruction of “high” communist morality in the USSR, as well as the sliding of the Russian society in the 1990s into a state of “war of all against all”. Setting himself the task of tracing how “evil” is born from “good”, Fishman draws attention to the fact that the communist morality of the Soviet Union contained an internal contradiction due to the combination of what can be called virtue ethics and the ethics of principles. Virtues consist of values that are relevant to certain communities. At the same time, virtue ethics has a dual nature. Under certain social circumstances, it contributes to nurturing a harmonious individual who strives for high social goals. This happens if the ethics of principles rises above it, setting higher goals and general ideas about how to treat other members of society. But if the ethics of principles ceases to function, nothing prevents the virtues from serving pure evil, for even members of mafia clans are not strangers to heroism, devotion, and honor. Fishman demonstrates how the virtue ethics gradually replaced the ethics of principles, bringing closer the collapse of the great communist project. According to Dmitry Davydov’s conclusion, the value of Fishman’s research is greater than just historical. No communist project can exclude either its humanistic core, with the focus on the liberation of the individual, or its emphasis on the socialization of the individual in these or other communities. But any “harmonious” personality and any community that serves “the good” risk transforming into their opposites: into a selfish individual and an association of “friends”, for whom everyone “who is not with us” is an enemy.

Age matters: health, older people and gerohygiene in the late Soviet Union

AbstractIn the late Soviet period, a great deal of research was conducted on older people’s health, with the Institute of Gerontology Academy of Medical Sciences (AMN) USSR in Kyiv spearheading a great deal of this. Of particular interest was older people’s ability to work beyond retirement age, the issue of premature ageing, as well as physical activity, diet and living conditions. Many of these interests came under the concept of ‘gerohygiene’, which also reflected the Soviet Union’s prophylactic approach to eldercare (and healthcare more generally). Discussions about older people and Soviet research on gerohygiene are important for furthering our understanding of ideas around healthy ageing and the Soviet project more generally. The Soviet, and indeed socialist, research on gerohygiene sheds light on ideas around active ageing, premature ageing and work practices for older people. It also shows that the role of old people belonged to the wider Soviet effort of contributing to the communist project and shaping society. In this article, I define and examine the broad concept of ‘gerohygiene’ and then assess how gerohygiene applied to older people’s health in relation to both physical activity and labour.

Interaction as an Artistic and Political Strategy: a Philosophical Source of the Relational Aesthetics

The article analyzes the concept of «social turn» in the art of the turn of the XX-XXI centuries, the most famous conceptualization of which is Relational Aesthetics by Nicolas Bourriaud. Collapse of the communist project, general disappointment of the art community in the neoliberal version of capitalism – those are aesthetic and political reasons for the Relational Art. The article discusses the difference between the Relational Art and modernist artistic practices. The interpretation of the principle of "operational realism" according to Bourriaud - the art of «social turn» does not revolutionize the world of capitalist exploitation and alienation, but learns to exist in the established cultural context, carrying aesthetic projections on social relations already existing in reality in order to gently recode the world. The main «medium» of the Relational Art is human relations, the main theme - «being-together», the goal – microsocialities, new ways of human collaboration. The article proposes a comparative analysis of the aesthetic and political aspects of Guy Debord's concept of the "society of the spectacle" and Relational Aesthetics - the former served as the philosophical source of the latter.

Atomic Visitors from Outer Space: The Tunguska Nuclear Hypothesis in Soviet Technological Imagination

In the mid‐1940s an idea arose that a crash of an atomically‐powered alien spaceship had caused the mysterious Tunguska explosion of 1908 in Siberia. Initially expressed as fiction, this speculation evolved into an active hypothesis that inspired decades’ worth of amateur investigations. This article examines the history of the Tunguska nuclear hypothesis and what it reveals about nuclear and technological culture in the USSR. It argues that Soviet technological imagination had a tendency to place the country's developments into a cosmic perspective that drew parallels between contemporary circumstances on Earth and the possible existence of technologies among civilizations elsewhere in the universe. Seeing the country's communist project as part of a cosmic drama involved a form of universalism that aligned with Marxist ideology, but also possessed distinctive influences and afterlives. By concentrating on cosmic analogies at play in Soviet technological imagination about Tunguska, this article also underscores how the suspected link between otherworldly civilizations and earthly actions informed ways of conceptualizing race and ethnicity, the boundaries of scientific knowledge, and the natural environment.

Socrealizm od środka. Design, sztuka wnętrza i modernizacja

The article focuses on interior design from the first half of the 1950s. The interior spaces realized at that time in Poland elude unambiguous classifications, both in terms of formal and ideological aspects. I propose to look at the interiors from this time not in terms of style (difficult, complex, hybrid), but in a broader sense, as a political, socio-cultural phenomenon. The interiors were supposed to favor social modernization (assumed in the communist project), especially the idea of promotion and changing class habitus. They precisely modeled new forms of social life (cultural spaces), as well as family life, as they defined the way of eating, “being” (gastronomic interiors), spending free time and holidays. The leap into modernity was particularly noticeable in the architecture and interiors with which everyone interacted on a daily basis. Indicating the participation of interiors in the multifaceted modernization process can make us realize the complexity of the post-war reality, including the interior design from the first half of the 1950s, which was related to many spheres of social and cultural life.

On Sequins and Shit

This article explores the work of theorist, activist, and performer Mario Mieli through the lens of fashion, unearthing the central function that radical dress occupies in his gay communist project. I focus in particular on how, within Mieli's queer utopianism, radical transvestism operates as an ethico-political praxis with the purpose of challenging capitalism and liberating Eros. On the one hand, fashion is condemned by Mieli with arguments attuned to those used by the Frankfurt School against the culture industry. On the other, dress – intended as a signifier of politicised self-fashioning – emerges as a force incorporated by the crossdresser to establish modes of intersubjectivity rooted in polymorphous desire as well as collective forms of resistance against the Norm. For Mieli, critique is corporeally embodied. On this ground, dress permits the material articulation of embodied critical instances of queer insurrection. I conclude by explaining why, within Mieli's transsexual utopia, crossdressing should be read in alignment with non-normative sexual practices such as coprophagy.

Тема любви в русских философских утопиях 1920-1930-х гг. (А. Платонов и С. Калачов)

The article discusses the role of feelings in shaping the society of the future using two concepts created in the 1920s and 1930s in Russia. These are the projects of Andrei Platonov and Stepan Kalachov, which can be attributed to the philosophy of love. The concepts reflect the features of the post-revolutionary era and are linked to the transformation of the period. Despite some similarities between the projects, each has its own characteristics. Platonov's conception is characterized by a transformation we witness at the end of the 1930s, which was connected with the change of the philosopher's attitude to the development of society and the relationship between the sexes, and was due to the construction of communism in the country and the methods used for this purpose. There is no such change in the utopia of Kalachov's eroica, and the basic precepts laid down in the 1920s continue to evolve further into the concept of life wisdom. The first period in Platonov's work is connected with the ideas of technocracy and asceticism in the relationship between the sexes. In this regard, the sensual aspect is suppressed and destroyed as an impediment to the grand transformation of society; hence the new techniques of destroying sexual instinct, preaching chastity. In the society to be created, the mind suppresses feelings, which determines the attitude to the woman and the feminine that become of secondary importance. Gradually, the philosopher becomes disillusioned with the ongoing transformations of the Bolsheviks, and his attitude towards women and feelings changes. Kalachov's eroica conception refers to erotic utopia and represents the synthesis of eroticism and heroics of the era. Kalachov reveals the sensual and bodily aspect of the society of the future. He has the ideas of technocracy, which relates him to Platonov's conception. However, Kalachov does not abandon feelings in the new society, and the theme of love is central to him. Some features of the conception echo the views of some members of the Marxist ideology (Alexandra Kollontai), but generally do not reflect the views of the official authorities. Both projects reflect the characteristics of the era that created them, offer a solution to the problem of gender relations, and reveal the importance of love in society. Love in these projects is a transformative beginning that can change the human being and society, and lead the world to universal harmony. However, in the context of the communist project, in which the spirit of freedom of the first post-revolutionary years was destroyed, they could not be realized and remained utopias.

Eating healthy, eating modern. The “urbanization” of food tastes in communist Poland (1945–1989)

The paper analyses the changes of food behaviours in post-1945 Poland in the context of socialist modernization. It is focused on both discourses and everyday practices. After 1945 Poland was a nearly mono-ethnic rural society which experienced fast modernization, industrialization and urbanization. The communist authorities who promised social justice and universal prosperity faced a problem of painful food shortages. This resulted from the aftermaths of war, and later was a by-product of the socialist economy. Thus, dietary education became an important strategy in the effort to feed the new socialist Poland. Special institutions and agendas were established to modernize eating habits according to the “rational”, “scientific” bases of the communist project of modernization. Up until the late 1970s, expert dietary advice promoted pre-prepared food, canned and frozen products, vegetables and meat consumption. Food columns in women’s magazines, advice books and adverts presented the model of a modern cuisine, which was in the first place healthy, but also urban. Official food policies affected everyday practices and, by the end of the 1970s, experts identified a process of the denaturalization of food in rural areas. This changed during the crisis of the 1980s, when “traditional” recipes came to be appreciated as simple and “natural”. The analysis of expert and popular discourses (women’s magazines, medical literature), as well as of personal narratives (personal diaries, memoirs, letters to the editor) shows the changing meanings of food, and their connections to processes of urbanization and social advancement which were elements of a socialist modernization which was not too different from the western modernity of the time.

Socialism with an Occult Face: Aesthetics, Spirituality, and Utopia in Late Socialist Bulgaria

This article explores the unlikely infusion of state-sponsored spiritualism into the materialist ideology of Bulgarian late communism. In the 1970s, Minister of Culture and daughter of party leader Lyudmila Zhivkova initiated grandiose state programs to inject the “occult” into Bulgaria’s national culture, art, science, and even political philosophy. Inspired by her Eastern religious beliefs, she sought to “breed” a nation of “all-round and harmoniously developed individuals,” devoted to spiritual self-perfection, who would ultimately “work, live and create according to the laws of beauty.” How are we to explain such a paradoxical lapse into state-sponsored spiritualism in a milieu dominated by materialism as a philosophy and way of life? How did Zhivkova’s occultism inform and transform Bulgarian late socialism? In pursuit of these questions, the article opens with Zhivkova’s intellectual and political trajectories, especially her spiritual formation, as I see her religiosity as the cornerstone of her cultural theory and praxis. The second part reconstructs Zhivkova’s theoretical apparatus, while the third demonstrates how it was translated into a large-scale aesthetic-spiritual utopia, which posited art, culture, aesthetics, and spirituality as a way to revamp the entire communist project. I contend that as quixotic as Zhivkova’s vision was, her policies contributed to the liberalization of art and culture in a period that has long been associated exclusively with stagnation and decay. In so doing, I demonstrate that impulses to attach “a human face” to the communist project endured even after the Prague Spring of 1968.

Spatial Analysis of the Possible First Serbian Conurbation

After the breakup of the former Republic of Yugoslavia, the number of inhabitants in newly formed state of Serbia has been in constant decrease. On the other hand, the number of urban areas has been growing. One of the main goals of former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was the development of all the areas, including the rural ones. In the ‘60s and the ‘70s, the land with special purpose was supposed to be of the utmost importance. Urban regions were to be better connected and enlarged. The main reason for it was the distribution of economic activities as well as the process of deagrarization which had already been in progress. In 1966, the first spatial plan of a special-purpose area, being the outset of an idea in a Socialist country, was in fact the proposition of the first Yugoslav conurbation. The long forgotten project was about to be reinforced in 1996, when thirty years later the country was in a transitional period, heading towards market capitalization. After the final breakup of Yuoslavia, there was a growing need for preservation of the urban areas and large trade centers, along with the necessity of better communication among municipalities. The ambitious project in question called “Morava city”, has never been brought to life. The main purpose of this manuscript is to answer the question of the actual necessity of this potential conurbation by means of GIS methodology, qualitative and quantitative techniques, and demographic and sociological factors. Accordingly, by means of spatial analysis, the communist project is placed into post-communist environment. Finally, the manuscript focuses on the relationship between rural and urban areas, traffic connectivity, geographical position, and most importantly on the sustainability and profitability of the first Serbian conurbation.

On the Other Side of the “Vnenakhodimost'” Principle: The Event of the Revolution and the Problem of Metalanguage in Soviet Thought of the 1960s

Analizing a number of texts devoted to the significance and fate of the Russian revolution, we can study the functioning and problematization of ideological discourse in the reflection of late Soviet intellectuals on the foundations of the Soviet world and the metalanguage paradoxes that this reflection produces. The articles by E. Ilyenkov, M. Lifshits, G. Pospelov, M. Gefter offer different configurations of the same semantic field, in which the beliefs, values, and methodologies of the authors enter into complex relationships with an authoritative language that defines the very layout of this field. Building a kind of theodicy of revolution, the authors are forced to separate the “state of things” from the project-language, by which it is described and transformed. From the very beginning, the communist project is considered precisely as a world-historical one; the Russian revolution, as the authoritative discourse says, has “world-historical significance”. But at the same time, the very event of the revolution is an act of extreme territorialization, radical pragmatization of the theory, and even a break in it. The idea of foundation is forced to combine in two proportions two modes of interpretation and therefore two types of appropriation: a revolutionary project as a teleological form of world history and the theory of this history, and what the project addresses as a local system, faced with a certain limitation. The very point of revolution turns out to be the intersection point of two or more genealogical logics, which have to be brought to unity by a special effort. Our analysis shows that an attempt to critically legitimize the Soviet project as a whole leads to deterritorialization, a kind of vnenakhodimost'of the project itself and, conversely, to a partial territorialization of its problems.

China Through the Lens of Modernity

Abstract This article examines China’s encounter with modernity from the 19th century to the present day. It builds on the historical narrative of modernity developed by Buzan and Lawson (2015), and two theoretical perspectives: uneven and combined development, and differentiation theory. The article opens with a short history of modernity, establishing that it is not a static phenomenon, but a continuously unfolding process. It then explores five periods of China’s encounter with modernity: imperial decline and resistance to modernization; civil war and Japanese invasion; Mao’s radical communist project; Deng’s market socialism; and Xi’s attempt to synthesize Confucius, Mao, and Deng. It explores both how China fits into the general trajectory of modernity, and how it has evolved from rejection of it to constructing its own distinctive version of ‘modernity with Chinese characteristics’. The article ends by reflecting on what issues remain within China’s version of modernity, and how it fits, and doesn’t fit with other forms of modernity already established within global international society.

Socialist Content in National Form: A Guiding Principle of the "Communist Project" in Romanian Architecture

The article follows the theme of "socialist content in national form" in Romanian architecture during a period stretching from approximately 1944 to 1989 – a time interval that is usually associated with the specific political agenda that dominated society in a decisive and profound way throughout the era, which is usually indicated as "communism". This time interval can also be indicated by using other keywords and concepts, such as "socialism", "state socialism", "totalitarianism" or others, sometimes in association with the keyword "communism". For reasons that will be presented in the introduction, the title of the article will prefer the use of the term "the communist project" for indicating the chronological focus of the article; the word "project" also holds a conceptual meaning – therefore being considered appropriate in the context of a mostly conceptual discussion that the article focusses on – as it tries to examine one of the most powerful and influential key concepts of the era: "socialist content in national form".

Ethnic Disintegration and the Dissolution of the USSR

An immense role in the collapse of the USSR was played by a whole array of factors: the public being tired of the Communist project; the massive shortages of consumer goods, which made people hate the government; the growing opposition within the Communist party to Gorbachev’s reforms; the hesitation of the General Secretary who tried to rely in turn either on the right or on the left wing; the drastic fall in the living standards. The crucial role, however, was played by “the parade of sovereignties” and the Centre being too late in its attempts to address the national question. By the autumn of 1990, the President’s close associates started to sense that power was slipping from Gorbachev’s hands; with the fellow countrymen staying remarkably indifferent, the Soviet Union was heading towards dissolution as the ambitions of local party leaders in the constituent republics generated and cannily magnified nationalist and separatist trends. Gorbachev kept up his maneuver strategy, which put him on the verge of resignation in the spring of 1991 when his support was minimal. He seemed, though, to have managed to pull out of this dive thanks to the Soviet Union referendum held on March 17, in which the voters were asked if they considered the preservation of the USSR necessary. Eventually, however, the issue of preserving or not preserving a unified state depended directly on the position of Russia as the backbone of the Soviet Union. The study draws on the author’s personal archive of original testimonies and interviews of the political figures directly involved in the events in question.

Ot ideologii k utopii. Kommunisticheskij proekt Ivana Efremova

Ot ideologii k utopii. Kommunisticheskij proekt Ivana Efremova

Communist Proteins: Lenin's Skin, Astrobiology, and the Origin of Life

Communist ProteinsLenin's Skin, Astrobiology, and the Origin of Life Alexei Yurchak (bio) If every physical and chemical invention is a blasphemy, every biological invention is a perversion. —J. B. S. Haldane We might say indeed that modern man has an epidermis rather than a soul. —James Joyce Body without Organs When Lenin died on 21 January 1924, there were no plans to preserve his body, and the funeral was planned for 27 January. However, in part due to extremely cold temperatures that winter, the body showed no signs of decay for longer than usual.1 Every few days party commissions checked the condition [End Page 683] of the body, making sure that it remained in a good state, until in March warm weather brought the first alarming signs of decomposition.2 The unexpectedly long period during which Lenin's body remained un-buried allowed the party leaders to discuss its possible future in greater detail than they could have otherwise. At first, any mention of long-term preservation and display seemed controversial, and to some in the leadership sounded like a violation of their materialist worldview. But others insisted that it was important to display Lenin's body for a while longer, if not indefinitely, to let the proletarians of the world bid farewell to their leader.3 Eventually it was decided to allow Professor of Medicine Vladimir Vorob´ev and the biochemist Boris Zbarskii to try an experimental embalming method they proposed. They worked on the body for four months and in late July 1924 reported success. If Lenin's body were regularly reembalmed according to their method, they claimed, it was likely to remain in a good condition for a very long time.4 After that report, everything changed. Lenin's body was no longer a decomposing corpse, and talking about burying it seemed inappropriate. The transcripts of the debates among party leaders before the embalming suggest that they saw Lenin's body in two distinct ways: not only as the body of a flesh-and-blood individual called Lenin but also as the embodiment of the foundational truth of the communist project—truth that was different from Lenin and bigger than him. This doubled body stood for "Leninism"—both a man's teaching and a truth that far transcended that man.5 This perception affected how the body was eventually preserved and the procedures to which it has been subjected since. It is important to stress, however, that this project has never been linked to any hopes or plans for Lenin's literal resurrection. Sometimes journalistic and academic accounts suggest that Lenin's body may have been preserved because Bolsheviks believed that science would one day be able to revive the leader.6 At the time of Lenin's death, there were also popular rumors about supposed plans to do so. However, the scientists and [End Page 684] politicians who were involved in the project of preserving Lenin's body never discussed resurrection. And if we consider how Lenin's body was preserved, it appears that they never privately considered that idea either. For example, the original plans to freeze Lenin's body—a form of preservation that might seem reminiscent of contemporary cryonics and therefore might give at least some grounds to speculations about resurrection—were quickly abandoned for several reasons.7 It had become clear that freezing would preserve not only the body but also all its visible defects, while liquid embalming could allow the scientists to continue fixing these defects later.8 Also, an experiment in freezing a dead human body that was conducted soon after Lenin's death demonstrated that even small fluctuations in temperature led to rapid darkening of the body's tissues and decomposition. In a country devastated by the Civil War electrical grids were unstable, and freezing was ruled out as too risky. Most importantly, the dual way of thinking about Lenin's body translated into a particular understanding of what preservation might mean in his case. It was not Lenin's full physical body that was preserved but only part of its material structure—its skeleton, skin, muscle tissues, and outward form and appearance, but neither its...